David Smelson, PsyD
By DoM Communications | Date published: August 13, 2026
August Researcher Spotlight: David Smelson, PsyD
In this month’s Researcher Spotlight, we feature David Smelson, PsyD, professor of medicine in the Division of Health Systems Science. Dr. Smelson’s research focuses on patients with comorbid addiction and mental health disorders.
Early in his career, Dr. Smelson did not envision becoming a researcher, instead planning to pursue clinical work.
“The combination of training with a biological psychiatrist when I was interning and recognizing this problem of people not coming into care and cycling in and out of care really piqued my interest in how we could improve care,” shared Dr. Smelson. “I started to experiment on my own with different intervention strategies, and then over time, I became more interested in systematically trying these things.”
As professor of medicine in the Division of Health Systems Science and director of the Center of Excellence in Addiction at UMass Chan, Dr. Smelson has developed a multi-component intervention that addresses various needs of individuals with addiction, mental health conditions, and other social service needs. Titled MISSION (Maintaining Independence and Sobriety through Systems Integration, Outreach, and Networking), this multicomponent integrated treatment approach is now an evidence-based intervention and was first developed in 2001 to address mental health, substance misuse, and other psychosocial needs of individuals with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.
“I now have a very large NIH study where we are randomizing about a thousand people with mental health and opiate use disorders into different parts of the evidence-based practices,” explained Dr. Smelson. “Through this grant, we are trying to understand which combination of multicomponent MISSION practices are driving outcomes, and which pieces are more efficient, cost-effective, and for whom.”
In his work, Dr. Smelson collaborates closely with Paige Shaffer, MPH, PhD, and Abigail Helm, MS, PhD, both assistant professors of medicine in the Division of Health Systems Science, Apurv Soni, MD, PhD’21, assistant professor of medicine and director of the Program in Digital Medicine, and Stephanie Carrero, MD, PhD, vice chair and associate professor of Emergency Medicine. Together, they have collaborated on many areas of research, studying multimorbidity, comorbidities, and digital health interventions integrated within the MISSION Model.
In a new initiative, Drs. Smelson and Jennifer Harter from the Division of Health Systems Science have altered the MISSION model for those people leaving jail or prison with addiction, opioid use disorder, and mental health disorders. Using a randomized controlled trial and funded by the NIDA JCOIN initiative, Drs. Smelson and Shaffer are testing the MISSION initiative, along with a peer-only linkage intervention, at the Worcester and Hampshire Houses of Corrections.
“Those with addiction, opioid use disorder, and mental health problems have a substantially higher rate of overdose, and that high rate of overdose is early on when people leave jail,” said Dr. Smelson. “We are testing this multi-component intervention and added tools around criminogenic thinking and behavior or pro-social thinking and behavior to support and reduce people’s criminal justice involvement.”
Dr. Smelson finds that mentoring junior faculty, writing grants, and conducting his research are among the most rewarding aspects of his work.
“Although we work with a very complex population, it is incredibly rewarding and a real honor to be able to work with the population and hear stories from our clinicians about the lives they are improving with these interventions,” said Dr. Smelson. “We have made many different adaptations to really improve the lives of the population we work with, and that’s probably the most rewarding part, and of course supporting, working with, and mentoring junior faculty and trying to help them become independent.”
Dr. Smelson earned his PsyD from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, Illinois, and completed an internship in clinical psychology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Medical School in Newark, New Jersey. He also completed a predoctoral externship in clinical psychology at the University of Chicago.
We thank Dr. Smelson for his ongoing clinical and research contributions to UMass and beyond!
To learn more about the MISSION Model, click here.